night-wren

If I do things that work toward Missions One or Three which I don't have listed yet, I will totally add them. At the moment, vague classification of 'fruit' and 'vegetables' works fine. It's more likely that I'll add things to Three if I exercise in a new way. Working on One and Three would probably be more anxiety-friendly than Two is. Good point.

{Day 5} yesterday I broke even! Yaaaay! Mission One: +5 XP Mission Two: -5 XP Mission Three: 0 XP Net for the Day: 0 XP {!!!!} Week So Far: -19 XP Gotta keep eating those fruits and veggies, and finally get serious about exercising. Because yeah, that has not been happening so far this week. Thank you so much to everyone who's given me ideas on ways to substitute fruit for pointless sugar!

{day 4} yesterday Mission One: +2 XP Mission Two: -6 XP Mission Three: 0 XP Net for the Day: -4 XP Week so Far: -19 XP

I haven't tried sugar snap peas. Hmm. Carrots, though, I know I like carrots {and so do my dogs}! I remember eating slices of green pepper like potato chips when I was little; maybe I should try that again, too? This sounds delicious. And I think I have all the ingredients? Yes. Awesome.

You have a point; I've heard of similar experiences. On the other hand, being able to point to a label and say "See, there's a word for it! I'm not making this up. It is A Real Thing" has a power of its own. Maybe it's a difference between identifying by a completely different term, like asexual, as opposed to identifying by terms that they already think they understand, like heterosexual homoromantic. YMMV?

{Day 3} Apples. Wow. I had entirely forgotten how fantastic granny smith apples are. Mission One: +4 XP Mission Two: -6 XP Mission Three: 0 XP Net for the Day:-2 XP Net for the Week So Far: -15 XP Unfortunately, the grocery trip that brought apples into the house also included ice cream.

{Day 2} Mission One: 0 XP Mission Two: -4 XP Mission 3: 0 XP

Unfortunately, I don't have a ton of control over what food is in the house, since I literally live in my parents' basement. {Yup. Living the geek cliche.} Maybe I can get healthy stuff added to the grocery list, but they are almost as fond of ice cream as I am, so the crap is likely to continue being available. And then there's the freaking Starbucks in the campus library where I go to work on coding projects, so yeah. Definitely need to level up my will save vs. sugar somehow. Curly brackets are the best brackets! Apples are a great idea! Sweet, but at least arguably healthy, and less effort/mess than oranges. Hmmm. This could work.

I've only tried the BBWW once so far, and I didn't get any further than the second circuit, so don't feel too bad. Heck, I didn't even get that far if you disqualify for utterly failing at pushups! {No, seriously, not even with my knees on the floor. Upper body strength? What's that?}

I suppose my missions as listed aren't exactly SMART. It's more of a tracking system than specific goals? The actual goal is to have consistent overall improvement demonstrated by the tracking, as opposed to the handwavey 'oh I'm doing better' stuff I've tried before. Very much trackable, realistic, attainable, measurable. So. Specific: I want to improve by at least +8 XP per week. Going my how badly today went {-9 XP}, I have plenty of room for improvement!

{Day 1} I had candy for breakfast this morning. Lots of candy. Mission One: +1 XP {yay tomatoes!} Mission Two: -11 XP {welp. then Starbucks then cinn-sugar bagel...} Mission Three: +1 XP {walk} Net for the Day: -9 XP So. At this point, I'm fairly certain that I eat sugary things to reduce my general anxiety/stress level. Any suggestions on something healthier to replace it with? Trying to go cold turkey on that calming sensory ritual won't end well. Help?

I'm glad I'm being helpful! I was kinda nervous about sounding too preachy. ​A clarification: body dysphoria isn't necessarily a gendery thing. In the Rebel Introductions subforum, I've read several people saying that they suddenly realized how out of shape they were, that it was difficult to believe and accept that they were obese, or couldn't run five miles, or whatever they used to be able to do. This cognitive dissonance about what they think their body is and the reality of what they can or can't do is, arguably, body dysphoria. Also, terms like butch and androgynous are also used as descriptions of types within a gender. It's sort of a Venn Diagram. Someone could be a butch {description} woman {gender}, someone else may be a butch{gender} and not a woman at all, and they're both completely accurate and okay {in my book, anyway. There are those who would rabidly disagree with that statement}.

anatomy =/= gender =/= pronouns =/= presentation. Unfortunately, our culture as it is right now assumes that these are all the same thing. When you're born, they look at your anatomy and assign you a pronoun, then expect you to identify and conform to it {and then there's intersex people- genitals not entirely one or the other; some really bad things tend to happen to these people's identities}. But for some of us, it doesn't fit. For some, their assigned gender is not how they see themselves, and they want to be treated as their actual identity; this is called gender dysphoria. For some, their anatomy is not what they feel it should be. This is often part of a binary-swap-transgender experience, but there are many other people who just disagree with their body's development. This is body dysphoria. It's not really about the hormones {though I've read about many wonderful experiences of going on Testosterone for transmen}, or anything that easily explained. In the end, gender is who you are and anatomy is what you have. As for non-binary folks: there are two "acceptable" genders. Many people don't identify with either of these, so they find a new gender term {neutrois, butch, androgyne, agender, bigender, Two-spirit, etc.}. Since these are not of the "default" binary, they are "non-binary". In fact, many are happy simply identifying as non-binary and leave it at that. {{yes, I say "anatomy" instead of "sex." As an asexual, I have issues with using the same word for both what you have and what you do with it. I have genitals, I don't have sex.}}